Facial, glossopharyngeal, and vagus nerves terminate within the rostral central (RC) subdivision of the rNST (Whitehead 1988) and neurons within the RC give rise to the bulk of the ascending projection to the PBN (Whitehead 1990; Halsell et al. 1996; Gill et al. 1999). Also inside the rNST, the ventralThe Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup706 C.A. Riley and M.S. King(V) subdivision includes the majority of neurons that project for the Rt and as a result serve a premotor function (Travers 1988; Halsell et al. 1996; Beckman and Whitehead 1991). In the PBN, the main taste-responsive area would be the waist area (W) that contains the central medial (CM) and ventral lateral (VL) subnuclei (Norgren and Pfaffmann 1975; Fulwiler and Saper 1984). Neurons in W give rise to the gustatory pathway to the thalamus at the same time as a descending projection to the rNST and Rt (Herbert et al.Betamethasone valerate 1990; Krukoff et al.Betamethasone dipropionate 1993; Karimnamazi and Travers 1998). Ultimately, inside the Rt, the intermediate reticular formation (IRt) includes neurons that project to cranial nerve motor nuclei, whereas neurons within the parvocellular reticular formation (PCRt) acquire projections from orosensory brainstem nuclei and forebrain areas involved in homeostatic, understanding, and gustatory processes (Beckman and Whitehead 1991; Shammah-Lagnado et al.PMID:28322188 1992; DiNardo and Travers 1997; Hayakawa et al. 1999) and project towards the IRt and oromotor nuclei (Holstege et al. 1977; Mizuno et al. 1983; Travers and Norgren 1983; Ter Horst et al. 1991; Fay and Norgren 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Travers et al. 1997, 2000; Travers and Rinaman 2002). Quite a few forebrain structures, including the central nucleus from the amygdala (CeA) and lateral hypothalamus (LH), are interconnected with gustatory brainstem structures. Especially, the CeA receives direct projections in the rNST and PBN (Norgren 1976; Bernard et al. 1993; Krukoff et al. 1993) and provides descending projections back to these nuclei (van der Kooy et al. 1984; Moga et al. 1990; Whitehead et al. 2000; Saggu and Lundy 2008) as well as to the Rt (Shammah-Lagnado et al. 1992). Within the rNST, the descending projection in the CeA terminates preferentially in V plus the ventral half of RC (Halsell 1998; Whitehead et al. 2000) suggesting a important part in premotor function in this nucleus. Electrophysiological data demonstrate a functional function in the descending projections from the CeA towards the rNST (Li et al. 2002) and the PBN (Lundy and Norgren 2001, 2004; Tokita et al. 2004). Specifically, taste-responsive rNST neurons are mainly excited by CeA stimulation whereas PBN neurons are mostly inhibited but excitation occurs at the same time (Lundy 2008). In each the rNST and PBN, activation of your CeA increases the selectivity of taste responses (Lundy and Norgren 2001, 2004; Li et al. 2002; Kang and Lundy 2010). Some neurons within the LH respond to taste stimuli applied for the oral cavity (Norgren 1970) and stimulation of the LH produces increases in meals intake (Coons et al. 1965; Frank et al. 1982) whereas lesions cause aphasia and adipsia (Grossman et al. 1978). The LH could influence feeding-related behaviors by means of its projections for the PBN, rNST, and Rt (Hosoya and Matsushita 1981; Berk and Finkelstein 1982; Villalobos and Ferssiwi 1987; Moga et al. 1990; Shammah-Lagnado et al. 1992; Whitehead et al. 2000). Just like the descending pathways from the CeA, activation of projections from.